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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (46621)	10/23/2010 3:27:24 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Not to mention how many times the Pres. lost the secret box.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (46621)	10/27/2010 9:37:21 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Nuclear weapons basically don't go off because of an accident. They could become "dirty bombs" if they crash (since they have both conventional explosives, and radioactive material), but you don't get a nuclear explosion. Because of that fact - "Had the bomb been armed with its fissile capsule, the immediate death toll may have reached six figures." - is extremely unlikely. For most dirty bombs most, or even all the deaths would be caused by the conventional explosion. (Like the situation with - "The resulting fire eventually detonated the 5,000 pounds of conventional explosives that were part of the Mark IV. That massive explosion killed seven people on the ground." - in these bombs without the nuclear material). The problem if they have the nuclear material would not be so much additional death (and almost certainly not six figures), but contamination of areas, requiring people to leave, perhaps for an extended length of time. the hypothetical (and technically impossible) chance of a burning reactor melting its way through the Earth Impossible for several reasons. 1 - There isn't anywhere near enough energy to go through miles of rock, let alone thousands. 2 - It would disperse, if it went far enough, reducing the melting depth. 3 - If there was enough energy to melt thousands of miles of rock, it would settle around the center of the Earth, it wouldn't climb up past lighter material once it reached the core. 4 - If none of those points applied, China isn't actually at the other side of the Earth from anywhere in the US. Australia is more likely than China. But I think for Fermi 1 the antipode would be in the southern Indian Ocean.